"Only a heartless misanthrope would argue against giving something to the dear, sweet former Duke lacrosse players who have been through such an ordeal.

"Why, I think one of them even spent an hour in custody -- not in jail, but waiting for a magistrate to finish his lunch so daddykins could post bail.

"The players are asking for $30 million. That seems a bit high for the inconvenience they suffered, but they certainly deserve some recompense. After all, the strippers they hired didn't even finish their hootchy-kootchy dance.

"How about a compromise figure? Instead of $30 million, how about a fish sandwich, a Yoo-hoo and a one-way Greyhound bus ticket?"

"What, did they miss the season finale of 'Friends' while waiting for a magistrate?

"Much of the media were too quick to demonize the little darlings when charges surfaced that they had raped an exotic dancer. As if to make up for that, most media have gone the other way, deifying the Blue Demon 3 and making them out to be victims of an evil woman and an even more evil judicial system.

"Judging by the amount they're seeking, it appears they themselves have come to believe the hype that they are somehow heroic and deserving.

"Heroes deserve their own song, so here, sung to the tune of that 1960s classic
'Abraham, Martin & John,' is my homage to three more heroes. Maestro, hit it:

"Has anybody here seen my old friends Dave, Reade & Collin?"

Cash Michaels, in an e-mail to me that he wanted made public:

"I read your misinformed treatment of my analysis of 'Until Proven Innocent,' and smiled.
[Note: Oh joy. My day is made.] Once again, KC and Stuart predictably did what I expected them, and you to do - misdirect attention away from the real offense. [Note: I focused on every possible offense, from the legal but immoral to the illegal but understandable to the monumentally malevolent. The "real offense" is railroading in the first degree and Stuart and KC have written the definitive history.]

"I already had copies of KC's emails to Prof. Joyner. Irv would religiously send them to me. [Note: Bless his heart. If you told him that you had ascertained that Nifong has no evidence and no case, Professor Joyner would have joined the pro-presumptionof innocence and due process side, wouldn't he? So why didn't you?]

"But at no time did KC or Stuart drop the 'let's be friends while I ask you this question' act, to put it to Joyner or McSurely or Barber straight -'Why did you do every thing you could to insure the conviction of three innocent white Duke players?' [Note: KC's email history speaks for itself. The truth here is not a mystery.]

"'Why did you actually applaud the injustice you had to know was going on?'

"'Why did you try to exact 'racial revenge' against the Duke players?'[Note: Good questions! Unless you sekpt the two of them in the dark about the lack of evidence and they are every so gullible when an ex-convict stripper cries gang rape.]

"Johnson and Taylor NEVER contacted Barber, Joyner or McSurely to ask THOSE questions relative to the issues they were discussing, and yet those conclusions were presented to the reader of the book as statements of fact.[Note: The co-authors stated many facts without the input of Barber, Joyner, McSurely or Nifong. Not a problem.]

"THAT'S what my analysis uncovered, and I stand by that! [Note: Your analysis ignored all those e-mails KC saved and posted. All four of those men deserved to be roasted.]

"They NEVER got the opportunity to defend their fine characters or well-respected reputations because Johnson and Taylor never gave them that chance. They were setup with puff questions in order to illicit [Note: elicit] answers that would be selectively used against them [Note: That's what YOU did in quoting me in your article, masking the meaning of what I actually had written and creating a false impression], and then maliciously condemned without ever being given the chance to defend themselves in what was supposed to be a scholarly book that was purportedly so well researched and comprehensively documented, notables such as john Grisham and George F. Will hailed it as meeting the highest standards of modern journalism. [Note: No book is flawless, but the tour de force that upsets you stands at the top.]

"When it comes to how it treated the African-American community, hardly! [Note: You were not mentioned in the book, but the late Ed Bradley, Duke Law Professor James Coleman and the insightful Jason Whitlock were.]

"I also noticed you and KC were so busy jumping with empty glee about some stupid emails, that you failed to address the rest of my analysis revealing some of the sloppiness and wild, unfounded assertions found in 'Until Proven Innocent.' [Note: Some complain that I write too much, while Cash wanted more. As I privately emailed Cash: "And I thought it was my surgery! Some would say I did pretty well getting out as much commentary as I did under the circumstances. It was also after Labor Day, my wife had returned from visiting her relatives in Guatemala and I had other projects with which to deal. All that and I still made time to write about you! The sheer ingratitude!"]

"Well just so that you can't say you weren't informed, my book is in the works on the Duke case, and the back story behind it. [Note: Try St. Martin's Press!]

"And make no mistake, you will certainly be in it - accurately and honestly. [Note: Fair is fair!]

"
And if I have any tough questions about character and reputation to ask you, you can be sure I won't chicken out like KC and Stuey did! [Note: KC and Stuart, cowardly? Afraid of YOU? Afraid to ask tough questions? Import water from someplace else, Cash.]

"Have a good day, and when you publish this in your column, be sure to print all of it! [Note: Of course. YOU declined to include my whole paragraph, but I want my readers as well as your readers to be able to read it all.]

Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.

Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.

The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.

Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.